Opening Activity: Do this when you are seated Task Instructions Find a partner, a set of dice, and the handout on your table from YouCubed: How Close to 100? The first partner rolls the dice, records the numbers from the dice and their product on the bottom of their handout as shown in red to the right. Choose a marker and shade in a rectangular shape with those dimensions. Beware! The rectangle can be shaded in anywhere on the grid that it fits, but the goal is to fill up the grid to get it as full as possible. The second player then rolls the dice, records their numbers and product on his/her sheet, and draws the correct number grid The game ends when both players have rolled the dice and cannot put any more arrays on the grid. The person with the least amount of white squares remaining is the winner. How close to 100 can you get?

Making Math Positive & Mindful What Leads to Math Learning and Success By: Dr. Tami Hocker

Each pair needs a set of Items, Paper, and pencil. Activity: NIM 7 Each pair needs a set of Items, Paper, and pencil. This is a basic form of the ancient game of NIM. You need seven objects and a partner. Place the 7 counters in a pile and decide who will go first. (In the next game, the other player will have the first turn.) Each player takes turns to take away either one or two counters. The player who takes the last counter wins. Keep playing at least through six cycles. Discuss with your partner if there is a winning strategy. Does it matter who has the first turn? If you finish before we come back together explore what happens when you start the game with more counters.

How do we help students of all ages learn and succeed? Growth Mindset How do we help students of all ages learn and succeed?

Fixed vs Growth Mindset: Students that believe they can learn, have a growth mindset and can learn more and build more brain capacity than those that do not. Students that avoid challenging situations have a fixed mindset. They see making mistakes as a failure and not a learning experience that everyone experiences. Students with a growth math mindset actively engage in problem- solving and explore mistakes, looking for new challenges with confidence (Boaler, 2016).

Making Mistakes Your brain instantly fires and grows a new synapse when you make a mistake. This happens even when we don’t realize we have produced an error. (Boaler, 2016).

One student described his class as having too much time spent on answers with little learning time. Our classrooms should not be viewed as places where answers are produced under pressure with little connection to meaning or future goals. Learning should connect students to their world (Boaler, 2016).

No matter how old you are, you can build your mathematical ability through growing your number sense skills. Please don’t say anything out loud until I ask for responses to this next item. Work out the problem on the right. Take your time and think about how you are getting the answer.

Okay, here is another one. Please don’t say anything out loud yet. Work out the problem noting how you are getting the answer. Now share in your groups how you did it. Did you all use the same method? (Boaler, 2016).

Set your mindset to a growth one and you will succeed. Believe you can learn and grow your brain.

One of Thomas Edison’s teachers told his mother he was addled One of Thomas Edison’s teachers told his mother he was addled. He suffered from dyslexia and learned differently than the average students in the classroom. His mother instinctively knew this was not going to be an environment in which her son could thrive and learn. After failing to find a school which worked well for Edison, she decided to home school him and allow him to explore and learn without the harsh and restrictive climate of traditional classroom instruction during his era. How different would our world be today without his many inventions? Edison was labeled an addled child. Thankfully his mother allowed him to became the genius he was meant to be.

Group activity 1: Planters Groups will come up with all variations for building rectangular planter beds that enclose a specific square footage of area. You will be given paper and pencils. The total square footage for the planter bed diagrams for part 1 will be 24 square feet.

Reference: Boaler, J. (2016). Mathematical mindset. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.